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Housing costs are both created by NIMBY and The Rich gobbling assets both Residential _AND_ Commercials. Here's the thing: if housing cost goes up but wage goe

Housing costs are both created by NIMBY and The Rich gobbling assets both Residential _AND_ Commercials. Here's the thing: if housing cost goes up but wage goes up as well (wage is controlled by the Rich), then things will be fine. But things aren't fine because Wage gets depressed, everywhere.

epistasis 2y ago
The problem isn't as much that wages are depressed as "The Rich" is the average person in the older generation that bought housing when an appropriate amount was being built, then lessened the amount of housing so that there's not enough for future generations. Class analysis must account for the strongest political class being real-estate asset holders that don't set wages but do benefit from a shortage of that real-estate asset.
- hello_moto 2y ago
  The rich that I refer here is Funds, REITs, or small group of Investors. All of them are financed by the Rich. > then lessened the amount of housing so that there's not enough for future generations. NIMBY definitely another issue but that house is still there and got bought by someone (person/entity) richer than the average.
  - epistasis 2y ago
    Large capital is not controlling the housing supply, though. That's entirely done at the local level by the petit bourgeois, which are the NIMBYs. You can read their investment filings which openly state this, even. Or go to any local government meeting.
- AnonymousPlanet 2y ago
  > "The Rich" is the average person in the older generation that bought housing when an appropriate amount was being built That's one of the fallacies here, thinking that upper middle class is "The Rich". If you think of it as a whole, you will see that the current trajectory means that the overall amount of property that the middle class owns collectively can only go down. Any house that was bought for dime by the older generation but cannot be retained by the following will drop out of the middle class. And it's not going to be spread among the poor but goes up to those who can still afford it: the actual rich. Thus the middle class slowly but surely bleeds out and all landownership will remain with the super rich. The older middle class is just a temporary place for assets. Once they have gone the situation I layed out will become more and more obvious.
  - epistasis 2y ago
    > And it's not going to be spread among the poor but goes up to those who can still afford it: the actual rich Which will be the children of the older generation of the middle class. Lack of housing supply is fueling huge economic inequality that wasn't there before. The situation you layout is not very clear to me, specifically what is meant by "super rich." How do the older middle class lose out and not become "the rich," specifically? I think the best description of what I'm talking about is the book The Asset Economy by Adkins et al.
    - AnonymousPlanet 2y ago
      The older middle class have assets that they acquired when those assets cost a fraction of the new price. The older middle class die and try to leave it to their heirs. If asset prices are higher than what a middle class income can afford, the middle class can only own property if they have inherited it. No new property is going to be owned by the middle class as a whole. There are plenty of ways, however, that property leaves the middle class. If your inheritance tax or property tax (both a percentage of the inflated asset "value"), e.g., exceeds what a middle class income can manage, the property will be sold. If you have used it for a loan to, e.g., start a business and you become ill or your plan fails, you might have to sell it. Who is going to buy these properties? If a middle class income can't afford property prices anymore, who is left? The middle class can only afford those houses by swapping their property for it. Therefore, the overall amount of properties owned by the middle class can only shrink. It baffles me that this isn't obvious to everyone. Now, who is "The Rich" in this scenario? Those of the middle class who own property will do so because they inherited it, not because they were able to afford it through their income. They might be able to swap it for another property and hope not to make a loss. Their income is still middle class, however. They can't use those inflated property values unless they sell which leaves them without said property. The rich are those who have enough income to increase their portfolio of assets despite of inflated prices, solely to park their money somewhere. Those aren't your middle class mom and pop who bought a house in the 80s and then a flat in the 90s. And the rich are also not the ones who inherit that house or flat but still earn a middle class income. There will be a sharp divide between the middle class that was lucky enough to inherit land and the middle class that wasn't so lucky. Reading comments like yours makes me believe that there will be a lot of finger pointing towards the lucky ones. Because those are the ones you can see. The ones who are inflating housing prices by their demand to park their vast amounts of money stay invisible. The ones that will be attacked are the upper middle class, just to pull them down. Like crabs in a bucket.

epistasis 2y ago

The problem isn't as much that wages are depressed as "The Rich" is the average person in the older generation that bought housing when an appropriate amount was being built, then lessened the amount of housing so that there's not enough for future generations. Class analysis must account for the strongest political class being real-estate asset holders that don't set wages but do benefit from a shortage of that real-estate asset.

hello_moto 2y ago
The rich that I refer here is Funds, REITs, or small group of Investors. All of them are financed by the Rich. > then lessened the amount of housing so that there's not enough for future generations. NIMBY definitely another issue but that house is still there and got bought by someone (person/entity) richer than the average.
- epistasis 2y ago
  Large capital is not controlling the housing supply, though. That's entirely done at the local level by the petit bourgeois, which are the NIMBYs. You can read their investment filings which openly state this, even. Or go to any local government meeting.
AnonymousPlanet 2y ago
> "The Rich" is the average person in the older generation that bought housing when an appropriate amount was being built That's one of the fallacies here, thinking that upper middle class is "The Rich". If you think of it as a whole, you will see that the current trajectory means that the overall amount of property that the middle class owns collectively can only go down. Any house that was bought for dime by the older generation but cannot be retained by the following will drop out of the middle class. And it's not going to be spread among the poor but goes up to those who can still afford it: the actual rich. Thus the middle class slowly but surely bleeds out and all landownership will remain with the super rich. The older middle class is just a temporary place for assets. Once they have gone the situation I layed out will become more and more obvious.
- epistasis 2y ago
  > And it's not going to be spread among the poor but goes up to those who can still afford it: the actual rich Which will be the children of the older generation of the middle class. Lack of housing supply is fueling huge economic inequality that wasn't there before. The situation you layout is not very clear to me, specifically what is meant by "super rich." How do the older middle class lose out and not become "the rich," specifically? I think the best description of what I'm talking about is the book The Asset Economy by Adkins et al.
  - AnonymousPlanet 2y ago
    The older middle class have assets that they acquired when those assets cost a fraction of the new price. The older middle class die and try to leave it to their heirs. If asset prices are higher than what a middle class income can afford, the middle class can only own property if they have inherited it. No new property is going to be owned by the middle class as a whole. There are plenty of ways, however, that property leaves the middle class. If your inheritance tax or property tax (both a percentage of the inflated asset "value"), e.g., exceeds what a middle class income can manage, the property will be sold. If you have used it for a loan to, e.g., start a business and you become ill or your plan fails, you might have to sell it. Who is going to buy these properties? If a middle class income can't afford property prices anymore, who is left? The middle class can only afford those houses by swapping their property for it. Therefore, the overall amount of properties owned by the middle class can only shrink. It baffles me that this isn't obvious to everyone. Now, who is "The Rich" in this scenario? Those of the middle class who own property will do so because they inherited it, not because they were able to afford it through their income. They might be able to swap it for another property and hope not to make a loss. Their income is still middle class, however. They can't use those inflated property values unless they sell which leaves them without said property. The rich are those who have enough income to increase their portfolio of assets despite of inflated prices, solely to park their money somewhere. Those aren't your middle class mom and pop who bought a house in the 80s and then a flat in the 90s. And the rich are also not the ones who inherit that house or flat but still earn a middle class income. There will be a sharp divide between the middle class that was lucky enough to inherit land and the middle class that wasn't so lucky. Reading comments like yours makes me believe that there will be a lot of finger pointing towards the lucky ones. Because those are the ones you can see. The ones who are inflating housing prices by their demand to park their vast amounts of money stay invisible. The ones that will be attacked are the upper middle class, just to pull them down. Like crabs in a bucket.